


What He Found

by geniusincombatboots



Series: The Doctor's Romance [3]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geniusincombatboots/pseuds/geniusincombatboots
Summary: What did Julian find in the dungeons that forced him to turn himself in? A small box, with a big secret changes everything, and upsets the plans of those fighting to clear his name.





	What He Found

**Author's Note:**

> Ok guys, I know this is likely not going to fit within the narrative we're going to get at the end of the visual novel any more than the other aspects of this series, but here it is. Here's a short little oneshot about what might have happened in the verse I've created.  
> Anyway enjoy!

What if Julian found something else in his dormitory?

Julian walked through the dungeon rooms that had served as the medical hall, deep in the pit of the palace, feeling a sense of unease that he couldn’t place even as he knew what it was he was looking over. It wasn’t even these horrors unlocking themselves in his mind, because some part of him had always known they were there. Zenia had shown him his crude drawing of the dissected brain, and he had known immediately what it was that he had done. There was something even deeper than this that was gnawing away in the back of his forgotten past, begging to be released.

Looking around the room, Julian was overwhelmed by the smell of old blood and new and of lingering sickness and death. He had to do this, he reminding himself, over and over, the words mumbled through his mind like a prayer. She was waiting for him, and he couldn’t leave her there where anyone might find her, and she without any explanation.

What was it? There was something that was here that he needed to see, but as he looked around the wide expanse of hall, he saw nothing that he hadn’t expected.

Damn it all. He took a deep breath, what would Zenia or Asra do? What was it she had done in the Coliseum? Let her mind go blank and just move naturally? He bit back the scoff that wanted to rise in his throat at the idea of relying on the unquantifiable, and did his best to let himself go where he was supposed to be going.

His hand reached out nervously and opened the door to his small cell of a room. He had slept here when the Count had locked his infected body, all favors forgotten. There was something so dreadfully sad about this room, beyond the normal sorrow of imprisonment. Something of longing that poured over his soul, and he found himself sitting at the small desk again for the first time in years.

It was cluttered with his normal chaotic lack of organization, and he felt even sadder, as if the state of his desk was some reminder of something he couldn’t remember. He moved things about the desk slowly and carefully, trying not to disturb the dust that had settled over his things, and couldn’t help but glance at a small box tucked away under and behind books, as if hidden conspicuously, and rather poorly.

There was something in it that he both feared and longed for with the thrill of mystery. It was a small puzzle box, and he knew that it was his own, and that had been a gift from Asra of all people. He shifted the pieces slowly to open the box in half.

At first glance there was only a piece of paper, folded carefully into the shape of a bird. It was such an odd thing to see, and he had not memory of it at all. His long fingers picked out the page in its artistic shape, feeling a small weight inside of it. He carefully undid the paper sculpture, bit by careful bit, afraid of tearing it.

He smoothed over the page before reading its contents, and registering what it was he held in his hand. Two simple, silver rings, one smaller than the other had been hidden in a marriage certificate. Even as he looked over it, he found that he both knew what he would read and also couldn’t believe the words as they told the secret.

There was a scrawl of a date in the top corner for a day three years ago when he must have been truly happy, “This document,” it read, “being notified on January 3rd of this year declares a valid and legitimate state of matrimony beyond any present contestation of the below signed.”

The official and careful calligraphy was made all the more regal when he looked over his own signature, and that of Zenia Marin, and the below signed witnesses were Nadia, Countess of Vesuvia, and an Emilie Sampson if he could make out the letters.

He felt everything crashing into place suddenly as he realized what had been pressing in every time he looked at her. There had been this feeling that he had known her so much longer, and so much more intimately than he should have done in the short time they had been acquainted. He wondered absently if she had known the whole time, but remembered her throwing a bottle at his head when he had announced himself in her shop without invitation or reason to be there after hours.

There was one thing he realized she had never told him, and that was what her life had been before taking the apprenticeship with Asra. She had become too quickly comfortable in his company, and he felt like there were snatches of things that may have happened, and might be imagined slipping in and out of his mind. Had she stayed with him in his suite when he had the fortune to have better accommodation? Had they danced and dined together? Had she danced along the ledge of the fountain in a blue dress once, and had there been flowers in her hair?

Even as Julian saw these images in his mind, they flitted away, forcing him to fight for what he remembered to stay in place. As he struggled to take hold of these memories, there was one he felt pressed in hard behind his eyelids, one he didn’t want.

Had Zenia lain in Asra’s arms the night of the masquerade, dead and not quite warm? He could almost still feel his forehead pressing against hers, begging her to breathe, a terrible realization blooming under it all. He quickly put everything back in the box and hurried down a hidden corridor. He had to get back in his own clothes, and he had to protect his wife in a way he hadn’t been able to once. He wouldn’t let her hang.

He looked carefully about him as he went back to Portia’s cottage to hide the box, his hands shaking with the decision he was making with every step and with every breath.

He felt a sudden pang in his chest as he thought he remembered looking across a pillow at her as the early morning sun warmed her sleeping face. She had looked so at peace there as he brushed the dark curls out of her face, watching her eyelids slowly flutter in sleep.

He wanted to leave a note, something to explain, but that would be a risk on top of all of those that had been taken on his behalf already. He rubbed his temples, trying to calm himself, and the pain in his head. It felt like the beginning of a migraine as the pain started pulsing behind his eyes. He hurried out through the door back to the palace. He hurried to the veranda where he caught sight of Zenia and the Countess. He looked at her standing there, fumbling for the words to save him from a fate that would be given to her he was now certain. He turned his head a little at the shout of the guards who had finally registered his presence, and hurried toward the Countess, the only thought in his mind was saving his wife.


End file.
